Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/692

Rh allowed his son to live with him and nurse his sick-bed in his last days.

The second letter also shows how devotedly attached was Narayan Chandra to his beloved mother. So was Vidyasagar to his dear, faithful wife. Dinamayi was a perfect Hindu mistress. Like her mother-in-law, she took great delight in cooking food with her own hands and in feeding people. She was also very liberal in charities. Latterly she had many quarrels with her husband for the sake of her banished son, Narayan Chandra, which was the origin of the subsequent unpleasant disagreement. She often helped her son privately with moneys; she even pawned her jewels, which constrained her husband to withhold making her gifts of money. Like her father, Satrughna, she was a woman of uncommon spirit, and magnanimity of heart. If ever she wanted her husband for a thing, and he refused it to her, she would be highly piqued. But Vidyasagar was equally strong-minded, and he would not care for her piquancy. Thus by degrees, the beloved couple had a great disagreement. But the loss of his dear wife revived in his tender heart the recollections of his former sweet conjugal life, and made him shed incessant tears. The recollections inflamed in him the blazing fire of regret for the disagreement of the latter days, which tended to aggravate the distressing symptoms of his painful malady.